Electrifying Manganese Complexes for Stationary Energy Storage

Renewable energies such as wind- and solar power are being implemented rapidly on a global scale. However, this energy is produced intermittently and irregularly. Storage and regulation of the produced energy is urgent in order not to waste any excess energy. Therefore, the interest in redox flow batteries, as an affordable, grid-ready and safe large-scale power storage technology, is increasing. Commercialized vanadium redox flow batteries are the most mature system; however, these batteries have limitations for wider implementation, especially the high cost and low abundancy of vanadium. 

To access unprecedented next generation symmetrical redox flow battery technologies, we will substitute vanadium with less toxic manganese, that is also 1000 times cheaper. This will be achieved by careful design of new organic ligands to tune the redox properties of their manganese complexes to obtain the desired performance and stability for redox flow batteries.